Looking for Disc Guide

[Deleted]

Hello everyone.

I love to play holy and never really wanted to play disc (the last time i tried was back in wotlk, and then it was for pvp).
But well, Shannox convinced me that it might be worth to give it a try.

Wasn't there a guide among the stickies? I think I read it once and thought it was quite nice. It seems to be gone, but maybe one of you can direct me to another good guide.

I especially need advice on which spells to use (do I use heal?) in which situations and some guidance concerning atonement. I don't dare to rely on a "random" heal But is it worth it for the archangel as a nice healing CD?

Thanks in advance, and forgive me if the guide is still here somewhere and me searching skills just failed me.

[Deleted]

well there was a really good one by a member called Spiritus, but he took it down it seems. Due to not being able to keep it updated.

(So I've not posted enough to be able to post links) But! If you google search Spiritual Guidance: Discipline Priests 101

It should come up to be the first result. It's not to bad.

If you have the haste to be able to cast Heal affectivly do use it. With the amount of damage going out in Firelands I find myself using Binding heal/Greater Heal (with BT) /PoM/Penance.

Attonment is a good spec espcially with archangel's cd. However there aren't alot of fights where the raid will be standing close enough to the boss. I've yet to actually try it so I could be wrong. I do know that you focus on Haste for AA spec and a fair bit of mastery, which you can get loads of from the new gear.

I've played Disc thru all the content of Cata thus far so you are welcome to PM me with any questions and I can try and help

[Madam]

Haimchen, I wrote a basic guide for my guild and with the help of a few here on MMO, made it better, link is in my sig. Hope it helps..

[Deleted]

Thank you very much, I read both of your recommended guides and will most likely try my brand new spec in some dungeons over the weekend.

I will be careful at the beginning and use a "normal healing" spec as I still don't really trust atonement healing ;-)

[[-Spiritus-]]

Thank you very much, I read both of your recommended guides and will most likely try my brand new spec in some dungeons over the weekend.

I will be careful at the beginning and use a "normal healing" spec as I still don't really trust atonement healing ;-)

Specing atonement is "normal" for a raid healing disc priest. I would highly suggest specing it and take it through some five mans so you can get use to the mechanic. As most will tell you, you don't pick up atonement for the healing, rather you pick it up so building your x5 evangelism for AA isn't a complete waste of healing related GCDs.

[Deleted]

I meant normal = like every other healer heals (selecting a target and chosing to heal it), not normal for disc (as I don't really have much experience concerning disc healing). Sorry if my wording was not clear.

But I see your point, hence my question in the OP.
I appreciate your advice and will take those atonement talents. And as soon as I get a brave tank from my guild I will use him for some experiments in dungeons ;-)

[[-Spiritus-]]

Right, you should never "rely" on Atonement. It should be used in low damage periods to build up stacks for blowing AA on high damage periods.

I'll said the same to someone else a while back with a similar question: if you are familiar with healing, the best way to "know" what spells to use is to use them. I mean, I can write a book about what spells you can use when, in what order, for whichever damage pattern, but it will not really help until you've been knee deep in those situations and succeeded/failed.

I would like to advise you specifically on T12, but I've been on WoW sabbatical (hence why I asked for my guide to be de-stickied). However, it seems like disc-priestdom has been moving to a HST heavy build for PoH+AutoDA (I swear there was someone talking about this at some point...) because of it's efficiency in more frequent damage situations (ie- DA getting absorbed more). For raid healing, PoH is your "baseline." Penance is a better version of GH. The rest of the spells you already know, or have a good idea about [PW:B, PI, etc]. PW:S will be the biggest "new thing" to deal with. Knowing when and how to use this ability is the mark of a good Disc priest. Having situational awareness to get a PW:S on someone before damage hits, when it isn't Raidwide Hit Ability #5, requires a completely different mindset than you would use in Holy. It is also important to have a shield break as close to every 12sec as possible for regen purposes. I would suggest Ignela's Rapture for this (though you can use Forte-X just as well).

But yeah, I believe guides can really help you only so much for the basics. Guides are actually, as far as healing is concerned, far more useful for intermediate to advanced players, to learn tips and tricks, or read some math. Best practice, IMO, is read tooltips and go nub it up in 5mans. If you have half a brain, it'll click and you'll be far more comfortable with your abilities than if you read about it first in a guide.

[Wass]

I did read this thread, spiritus you seem like a forward person, what would your current stat priority for disc be? Or anyone else for that matter, I'm sure it has been asked before and I AM going to read the threads here, but a response here would be great aswell. Basically, I've been gone for a couple months and I just came back to heal in FL, I'm currently playing holy pretty well imo, but a friend told me disc is even better. Char is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/emeriss/Wasselina/simple

Thanks in advance for the input !

[[-Spiritus-]]

I did read this thread, spiritus you seem like a forward person, what would your current stat priority for disc be?

If I was comfortable answering that question for 4.2, my guide would still be up. Since I'm not currently raiding, I can't personally test my weights in-game, so I really cannot count myself as a current authority on the subject. It does appear, however, that most Discs have HST as their first secondary stat priority up to about a ~2.1sec PoH, then split on MST or CRIT after that. For raid healing, at first glance, I'd prioritize MST over CRIT, but again, I haven't raided in 4.2 so take what I have to say w/ a grain of salt.

But in reality, asking stat priority should not be your first question after being gone for a couple months. You should first ask what changes have occured to the class, followed by whether you'll be primary tank or raid healing focused, followed by what the damage patterns are like in Firelands, followed by what changes have occurred to the other healing classes you'll be raiding with, followed by what most disc priests are using as counters to the most aggressive damage patterns, ...followed by stat priority (as all the questions asked before this will give you the answer to this question).

[Deleted]

I did read this thread, spiritus you seem like a forward person, what would your current stat priority for disc be? Or anyone else for that matter, I'm sure it has been asked before and I AM going to read the threads here, but a response here would be great aswell. Basically, I've been gone for a couple months and I just came back to heal in FL, I'm currently playing holy pretty well imo, but a friend told me disc is even better. Char is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/emeriss/Wasselina/simple

Thanks in advance for the input !

I'm still running a balanced crt/mst/hst setup, not really had any reason to change yet, but that said we're relatively casual as raiding goes so I don't need to be 100% optimized.

Looking at your gear I'd say you could drop a good chunk of spi from your gear as disc and boost your haste up with it. Disc can run a lot less spi than holy due to our regen being heavily based on int.

[Apostolic]

Current theorycrafting has stats at Int>Spi>Haste>Crit>Mastery.
Disc out preforms Holy usefulness in Firelands due to Barrier.

When running Atonement Spec, save the Archangel for High Burst healing. Currently in my gear, I am hitting about 80k heals with GHeal. Thats over 100k with the DA proc.

[Tharrag]

Current theorycrafting has stats at Int>Spi>Haste>Crit>Mastery.
Disc out preforms Holy usefulness in Firelands due to Barrier.

When running Atonement Spec, save the Archangel for High Burst healing. Currently in my gear, I am hitting about 80k heals with GHeal. Thats over 100k with the DA proc.

What is the source for that stat weighting?

[Apostolic]

What is the source for that stat weighting?

http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t110244-cataclysm_discipline_priest_compendium/p27/

If anything, keeping the stats lvl might be more optimal for overall healing (tank and raid).

[Tharrag]

this is interessting i aimed for MST long time but my playstyle inst poh spam or pws spam is more a mix of both so if i know there will dmg come in i pre schield sometimes, sometimes i will heal it with AA and PoH and i am always helping on tanks with pws penance sometimes GH if our other healers suck again But i think still i should go for HST instead then

thx